St. Paul's wins another high school football title

Make that five Winnipeg High School Football League championships in seven years for the St. Paul's Crusaders.

Make that five Winnipeg High School Football League championships in seven years for the St. Paul’s Crusaders.

The league’s powerhouse football program did it again on a frosty night at Investors Group Field yesterday, throttling the upstart Dakota Lancers, 35-0, to cap a perfect 10-0 season.

“It’s awesome,” St. Paul’s receiver Michael O’Shea said on the field where his dad coaches the Blue Bombers. “We’ve been working for this all year and it’s paid off. Everyone wanted this. They just worked hard to get it.”

O’Shea and his teammates grabbed the John Potter Trophy and mobbed each other, chanting “back-to-back” in celebration of their second straight title after shutting out a game but over-matched Dakota team making its first appearance in the final.

By comparison, St. Paul’s has reached the big game 10 straight years.

Quarterback Brody Lawson was the game MVP, completing 12 of 16 passes for 129 yards and three touchdowns, one to O’Shea that made it 19-0 going into half-time.

“I wouldn’t be half as good as I am if it wasn’t for them,” Lawson said of his receivers. “They just go up and make plays for me. They make me look a lot better than I actually am.”

Michael Asabil and Noah Dornn caught the other touchdown passes for St. Paul’s, while backup quarterback Te Jessie and running back Nic Peters scored majors along the ground.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Lawson said. “I haven’t won a championship since I was, like, 11 years old. Amazing season. Couldn’t have ended it any better.”

St. Paul’s defence might have been the biggest factor, hounding Dakota quarterback Reid Vankoughnett all night.

“It was a pretty hard game,” defensive end Collin Kornelson, who had two sacks, said. “The score may say something different, but Dakota battled hard throughout the game.”

It was 13-0 after one quarter, as St. Paul’s took advantage of great field position to score twice.

The Lancers were game on defence, but couldn’t mount a single scoring drive.

“We felt like the line of scrimmage was going to be key, and turnovers,” Crusaders coach Stacy Dainard said. “Thankfully, we didn’t turn the ball over and our (defensive) line played outstanding.”

It was a bit of a rebuilding year for St. Paul’s, with just 11 players returning from last year’s AAA title.

“Some of us played AA last year, so we’ve been a team together before,” Lawson said. “But being at a school like this, guys were just family.

We just pushed through it. Everybody bonded. We just came together as a team and did what we needed to do.”

It was a bitterly cold night, the temperature around minus-16 at kickoff.

“Honestly, the cold weather kind of threw me off a bit,” Lawson said. “I just had to forget about it, realize what kind of moment I was in and had to think about the team. They needed me.”

You couldn’t tell the cold affected any of the Crusaders.

“What’s cold?” O’Shea said.

His dad couldn’t have said it better.

FROSTY WARMUP DIDN’T STOP OAK PARK

Anyone watching the half-time break of the championship final in the Manitoba High School Football League’s Kas Vidruk Division would have thought the Oak Park Raiders had lost their minds.

While players and coaches from Vincent Massey Brandon were inside warming up from the bone-chilling temperatures, the Raiders stayed out on the field, tossing the ball around as if it were a mid-summer day at the park.

It seemed to work.

Leading 28-14 at the half, Oak Park piled up 19 straight points and coasted to a 47-14 victory.

“I talked to my coaches and they thought, 10 minutes, screw it — we’re going to stay out here,” Raiders head coach Chad Mackay said. “They got the heaters over there for us, so we stayed there. They wanted to really keep the guys focused. I’m not saying that was it, but we came out in the second half and we finished the game.

“I guess we’re all just hard-asses.”

The win capped a rocky season for Oak Park.

An 0-6-1 record saw them dropped from the top division, the AAA Potter, to the AA Vidruk, where they only had to win one playoff game to reach last night’s final.

“We had a struggle this year,” Mackay said. “But this is still good for a lot of guys, those Grade 12s, to have that success at the end.”

One of those graduating players was Eric Rivera, playing middle linebacker and running back.

You wouldn’t have known he was just a part-time runner when he broke open a 14-14 first-half tie with long touchdown runs of 75 and 52 yards.

“I put all my heart into this game,” Rivera said. “I did my personal best I’ve ever done. It’s because of my teammates. I’m very grateful to them.”

Mackay said Rivera was one of several Grade 12 players who had to play both ways.

“Eric was amazing,” the coach said. “We talked before the game and basically told him he’s got to step up and have a great game for us to put this away. And he did everything I asked. He’d come off and tell me, ‘I can run this play, and I’ll get it.’ And he did.

“He just churns it out. And then he turns around and plays middle linebacker. He’s just a guy we lean on.”

Rivera says staying out in the cold at half-time ensured his team was ready to put the Vikings away.

“We were accustomed to the climate, so we didn’t want to warm up,” he said. “And we only had 10 minutes. We were all ready to go.”

Oak Park won the Potter Division title three years ago, and Mackay hopes they’re back in contention there, next year.

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